ANA and UAN part ways.

When approximately 60,000 collective bargaining members of the United American Nurses (UAN) from eight of its founding member states disaffiliated from the UAN this past winter, there was reason to take note of what might come next. In December 2007, the American Nurses Association (ANA) sent written notice to the UAN that they would not be renewing the affiliation agreement with the UAN as an Associate Organizational Member. Within the same period of December 2007, the United American Nurses gave written notice to the American Nurses Association (ANA) that they would not be renewing their current affiliation agreement with ANA. The two parties to that affiliation agreement were required by contract to give six months notice of any intent of non-renewal before the five-year agreement was to expire at the end of June 2008. The United American Nurses became a separate and autonomous entity, completely independent from ANA in 2003.

Concurrent with the ANA notice of nonrenewal given to the UAN, the ANA also gave notice to the Center for American Nurses (Center) that ANA would not be renewing the ANA/Center affiliation agreement as an Associate Organizational Member. The Center for American Nurses is an autonomous, separately incorporated organization from ANA.

The affiliation agreement(s) between ANA/ UAN and ANA/Center included, in part, a financial arrangement that allocated ANA membership dues for members of both the UAN and ANA or the Center and ANA. By the terms of the original affiliation agreement(s), the agreements themselves would not have been operable unless needed bylaws and policy changes were made to support it. The ANA national dues policy was such a policy, and it was amended at that time to incorporate a discount on ANA dues for members of an Associate Organizational Member.

All references to the UAN and the Center have been removed from the ANA bylaws and all references to ANA have been removed from the United American Nurses bylaws and the Center for American Nurses.

The Georgia Nurses Association is a Constituent Member Association (CMA) of the American Nurses Association.

by Deborah Hackman, CAE